Chapter 39 #2
The second guard stares at me, now trembling. “I t—I tried to tell him, Y-Your Highness,” he stammers.
I don’t respond. Not with words, at least. I dart forward and sink my fangs into his neck, forcing venom into the bite.
He drops to the moss-covered ground with a satisfying thump.
I leave him and walk to the creek. Even with all the commotion, Elle still stares lifelessly toward the gray sky.
I stand over her, but her gaze drifts through me.
“Get up,” I command.
She doesn’t respond.
I lean down and yank the knife from her arm. Blood pours from the wound, mixing with the clear water, like smoke twisting in the air. The wound begins to heal itself, but slower than I had anticipated. I remove my shirt and tie it around her arm. It turns crimson.
“Get up,” I repeat.
“Make me.” Her voice is raspy, as if she hasn’t spoken in ages.
On instinct, I reach for the bond, for the compulsion it allows me, but I stop short. It feels wrong. “No.”
She doesn’t respond, just continues to lie there staring through me. I kneel, the icy water soaking into my pants as I hover over her.
“Get up,” I growl.
Again, no response.
I lean down and cup the back of her head, forcing her to look at me. “Would you stop your fucking wallowing and get up?”
That seems to do the trick. Her eyes snap into focus, and finally, she looks at me. But it’s still empty, devoid of the fire that makes her her.
“Put the knife back in,” she says.
The knife lays in the creek, glinting with the reflection of the sun. “What are you even doing?” I ask. “What is the point of this?”
She huffs a quiet laugh. “If I left it in long enough, I’d bleed out. Eventually.”
I focus on the soft curve of her neck, on the way her hair looks like a living flame as it dances in the current, on the way the pebbles bite into my kneecap. Anything to avoid thinking about when I tried to do the same.
“Listen to me,” I whisper, but my tongue feels too thick at the reminder of a time from long ago. “I’m trying to help you. I can’t get you out of here right now, but I’m trying. Now, get up.”
The next thing I know, I’m the one lying in the river. Elle hovers above me, the knife resting against my throat. Water streams from her soaked hair and nightgown, pouring onto me like raindrops.
“You’re such a fucking liar,” she spits at me. “You’re trying to manipulate me, just like you manipulated Mae.”
She has a point. I dip my head in understanding. “I’ve had a change of heart.” Well, more like My heart changed.
She throws her head back and laughs incredulously. “Fuck your heart.” She yanks the knife from my neck and stabs it into the center of my chest.
White, hot pain erupts. My vision blurs, and even though I’m laying down, the world somehow tilts. I let loose a string of curse words that Father surely would have punished me for. Showing any reaction after physical pain always resulted in his wrath.
When I can finally draw a full breath, I feel for the knife and wrench it from my chest. It goes flying.
I blink and the darkness that was closing in slowly recedes.
I stand, the back of my pants now soaking wet, while the front of my chest drips with blood.
I rub the spot where she stabbed and hiss. She really stabbed me, for fuck’s sake.
And now, she’s gone.
It doesn’t take me long to find her. She’s bent over, searching through the pockets of the dead guard that I didn’t burn to a crisp. I step on a branch, and she whirls toward me. Then takes off.
I catch up to her in a few strides, wrapping my arm around her midsection and pulling her against me. She flails, and it’s like holding onto a wet cat, for the Mother’s sake. I haul her back to the lifeless body and the charred remains of the other guard.
See, I’m trying to help you, I hiss into her mind.
Fury comes back down the bond. She rages against me, bare feet and frail hands pounding against my shins and chest. “What is wrong with you?” she shouts into my chest.
I take every hit. I deserve it. I wish she’d stab me again and again. I wish it could kill me. It doesn’t take long for her to tire herself out. The hits come slower and slower, until she stills in my arms.
“If I put you down, will you run?” I whisper.
She doesn’t respond. I set her down in front of a wide, ancient tree trunk, then cage her in with both arms. She stares back at me with pure hatred. I wish I had the freedom to look at anyone other than myself like that.
“I swear on my wretched life, I am trying to find a way to get you out of here that doesn’t end with you in a grave,” I say, trying desperately to convince her that I’m telling the truth.
She glares at me as she processes my words. After approximately five seconds of staring at me with an intensity that feels like it penetrates my very bones, she tilts her head in curiosity. Good. Maybe she believes me. My shoulders relax. Barely.
“Why?” she asks.
That wasn’t what I was expecting her to say. I don’t really have a good reason to give her, other than the truth. Because you’re actually my mate? Because I made a huge, terrible mistake? I clear my throat. “What does it matter?”
She scoffs. “Why, Marik? You tried to kill Mae. You killed the High Family. You’ve been forcing me to do your will for months. What’s with the sudden change of heart? I refuse to believe you suddenly grew one.”
I run a hand through my damp hair in frustration. “All I can say is that I’m trying to get you out and I need you to…” I fumble, knowing asking her to trust me won’t go over well. “I just need you to just believe me that I’m trying to get you out.”
She stares up at me through long eyelashes, amber eyes still full of unchecked fury, but now tinged with the gleam of skepticism, of curiosity. My heart flips in my chest.
“It won’t save you from Hell,” she says apathetically.
I chuckle. I already know that. “Do you care about my dalliances with the underworld, little fawn?” She stomps on my foot in response. It might have hurt more if she hadn’t stabbed me in the fucking heart just minutes ago. “Always violence with you.”
“You deserve it.”
Yes, I do. I deserve to burn for what I did to Mae and her family. I deserve to burn for all the sickening, miserable, foul things I’ve done to get here.
“In a few days, there will be a ball. If we can slip away, I can funnel you out of here.”
“Why can’t you funnel me out of here now?” she asks, looking around pointedly at the privacy we have.
I shake my head. “There are too many guards, too many little spies for Cora all around this place.”
She narrows her gaze. “What’s your plan, then?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll figure it out. Do you trust me?”
The question hangs between us.
“Not at all,” she says.
Silence blossoms between us once more.
“Have dinner with me tonight,” I blurt. She stares at me like I’ve grown antlers. “You need to eat if this is going to work.”
Elle claps her hands together and smiles, but it’s faux-saccharine and full of loathing. “Do I get to choose this time? Or are you going to take control of my body and make me walk and talk like your little puppet?”
My cheeks warm as shame floods me for the first time in a long, long time. “It’s your choice,” I manage to whisper.
“Oh, wonderful. I would rather choke on every piece of food for the rest of my life than eat dinner with you,” she fires back.
I shrug, the act of nonchalance one that I’m well versed in.
“What are you going to do about them?” she asks, hand gesturing flippantly to the dead guards.
Great question. “I’ll handle it.” I look down at her, at her hair, still soaking wet, at the goosebumps that line every inch of her skin. Her sodden clothes cling to every curve. I tear my gaze away. “You need to get inside.”
She scoffs. “It’s so funny that you all of a sudden act like you care. It doesn’t matter what you say, High King,” she spits. “There is no heart that beats in your chest.”
If that’s true, then why does it beat in tandem with yours?